


bring you back to me

by wincechesters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode Tag, Episode: s10e22 The Prisoner, M/M, Post-Episode: s10e22 The Prisoner, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3946318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wincechesters/pseuds/wincechesters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His eyes flutter shut as Dean's words ring over and over in his ears, echoing loud and more painful than any of his blows. <em>That Dean’s always been kind of a dick</em>, Dean had said, cold and dismissive, and Castiel wishes he'd found his tongue in time to say what he wanted to, for once. <em>He's not</em>, Castiel had thought savagely, raw and visceral and instinctual, though this Dean would only have laughed to hear it. <em>I love him</em>. </p><p><em>I love you</em>.<br/>---<br/>A 10x22 Coda</p>
            </blockquote>





	bring you back to me

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "A Walk Through Hell" by Say Anything and I made myself INFINITE SAD just reading the lyrics of that song in this context.
> 
> I HAVE TOO MANY CASTIEL FEELINGS OKAY

The floor of the Men of Letters bunker is hard and cold beneath his back, but Castiel lies there for a long time, long after the door has slammed shut behind Dean, leaving behind a heavy, frigid silence. Discomfort is nothing to an angel; not even the pain of his wounds is to be minded long, and those are nothing— _nothing—_ to the dull ache inside his chest, the hollow broken emptiness of his failure.

By the time he pushes himself to his feet and pries his blade from where it had been buried point-down beside him, the blood below his nose has dried. It crumbles away beneath the brush of his fingers, rust-colored dust wiped away as though it had never been. The broken bones and bleeding gashes had been healing before he hit the ground, knit together by his newly returned grace, but this other agony—this will last a while.

The library is in shambles, books piled in the center of the room, spattered with blood and gasoline and gore. He shouldn't linger for long; Sam will be here soon, and Dean is in the wind, and there is the carnage he left behind which needs to be dealt with. But Castiel is numb, and for a long moment, he succumbs to the raw throbbing ache inside his chest that Dean had torn open and left ragged, sinking into a nearby chair, dropping his head to his hands.

His eyes flutter shut as Dean's words ring over and over in his ears, echoing loud and more painful than any of his blows. _That Dean’s always been kind of a dick_ , Dean had said, cold and dismissive, and Castiel wishes he'd found his tongue in time to say what he wanted to, for once. _He's not,_ Castiel had thought savagely, raw and visceral and instinctual, though this Dean would only have laughed to hear it. _I love him._

_I love you._

How many times has he thought those words, bitten them back as something he had no right to say, not even in protest? Castiel longs—has longed—to speak it into Dean's skin, _I love you I love you I love you_ , a thousand times so that Dean would know, might finally believe after so many years, that he deserves to be saved. He had tried to say it in the clutch of his hand to Dean’s shoulder, his wrist, but the words wouldn’t come, and today they would not have made a difference, even if he had been able to speak them. He might never get the chance to say it now, not if he chases Dean and the Mark the world over for thousands of years, but it would never stop being true, immutable fact written down deep in the framework of Castiel’s being, unchangeable in a way he never was before.

It burns to think of it now, burns under his skin and in the pit of a stomach that shouldn't be his and behind his eyes. He swipes the back of his hand over them, brushing away tears before they can fall. Eternity is no time at all to an angel and he has never had any doubt that as long as he was alive, he would spend it with Dean. But watching this man, his beautiful, brilliant, incandescent Dean, fall like this is a torture such as he has never felt—not on Earth and not in Heaven or Hell or Purgatory. An eternity of this—he would stand it for Dean, would never ever stop trying to rid him of the Mark, but it would be a pain he could never shake, burning and aching and bleeding down to the atoms of him.

The wounds of his flesh are nothing, less than nothing. They are already gone. But feeling the blows fall from Dean's fists, seeing the dead, cold shock of nothing behind Dean's green eyes—that is mortal. Tears spill over his lashes and this time he does not wipe them away. He mourns his Dean (not _his_ , never his), the man who would never kill an innocent boy, who loves pie and classic rock, who misses his mother with a ferocity that burns, who loves his brother more than life, and is so bright and so beautiful in spite of the darkness he'd walked through all his years.

And even now, hunched in a chair with the wreckage of their altercation all around him, Castiel cannot believe that Dean is lost. His blade is cold and hard against his palm, and his fingers tighten compulsively around the handle. _Next time I won’t miss_ , Dean had snarled, but a Dean who would kill him without hesitation would never issue such a warning, would never have trembled with the blade raised to strike. When Castiel had said _Dean,_ _please_ , there had been something, a tiny crack that had broken through the dead, glassy stare and that tiny fracture is enough. His Dean is still there, and still deserves to be saved.

The door to the bunker bangs open, and there are Sam's booted feet on the stairs, his voice raised and frantic. Castiel pushes himself to his feet, ignoring the exhaustion seeping from himself into his vessel, weighing down his limbs. He tucks his blade back into the gape of his sleeve, steels himself with his back to the door as Sam skids to a stop behind him.

 _I love you,_ Castiel tells Dean now—silently, fiercely—as his hands close into tight fists at his sides, knuckles bleeding to white. Eternity is a long time to fight, but it is worth it, for Dean. _You are worth saving. I will not give up._

He sets his jaw and hardens his eyes, and turns to meet Sam.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. I'm on [tumblr](http://wincechesters.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/winceywonk) if you want to come cry with me. <3


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